The Trafficker

By Ransiri Fernando

This is a collection of true stories from the life and times of a prosecutor turned criminal defence attorney in Sri Lanka, which expose the failing social justice system in that country. Judicial corruption there has been a controversial topic that most lawyers do not want to talk about. The writer believes that this book will create an awareness among the public, and make the lawyers, judges, and police accountable so they will create a justice system that serves the interests of justice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Aug 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9780228836117

Ransiri Fernando

Ransiri Fernando is a barrister & solicitor currently practicing in Canada. He has worked as public defender in the province of Saskatchewan, and is currently based in Vancouver, British Columbia.Ransiri was called to the Bar in Sri Lanka in 1989. There he joined the Attorney General's Department in 1990 as a State Counsel and resigned from his office in December 2000. From 1996 until he left public service he appeared in several sensitive and complex prosecutions, where he earned his reputation as a fair-minded but hard-line prosecutor. He firmly believed that he would not flog dead horses merely because a senior officer wanted it, or some politician was interested. He was well known for conducting prosecutions based purely on merit and refusing to succumb to pressure. As a result, Ransiri was instantly successful when he started his private practice as a defence attorney in January 2001, and he enjoyed a successful practice until he decided to throw in the towel and immigrate to Canada with his family.Ransiri is also an excellent musician. Gifted with the talent to sing, he also plays piano, piano accordion, and a few other musical instruments proficiently. In fact, as a high school and law school student, he played for a number of musical groups in Sri Lanka. His favourite experiences were his solo piano recitals at some of Colombo's leading tourist hotels while he was in high school.Away from all the controversies in Sri Lanka, he has settled down with his family in Canada and practiced law in British Columbia since 2014.

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by Ransiri Fernando

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-3610-0 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-3609-4 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-3611-7 (eBook)

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the memory of the late Mr. Upawansa Yapa, President’s Counsel, Former Solicitor General of Sri Lanka and the most upright and honest public servant I have met in Sri Lanka.

Table of Contents

1. Dedication

2. Acknowledgement

3. Foreword by David Bright, B.A., J.D.

4. Introduction

5. Disappeared

6. The Trafficker

7. Abduction and Murder of a Police Constable

8. The Case Against OJ

9. His brother the killer

10. Prosecuting Nanton G

11. Prosecution of DMJ and Some Related Memories

Acknowledgement

All the love, help and inspiration I have received from my wife throughout my life, to get to where I am today. All the valuable advice she offered in editing and moderating the initial text I wrote. All her effort in making a happy home for me and our two children.

Foreword by David Bright, B.A., J.D.

I practiced criminal law for forty-two years until retiring in September of 2015. It was in late 2014 that I met Ransiri Fernando.

He was an applicant for a position we required to fill a one-year vacancy that had been created due to a maternity leave. My expectation at the time, was that the applicants seeking the position would be looking to gain experience, not to bring it. They were confirmed when I reviewed the applications. All except for Ransiri’s application, which stated he had extensive experience including having held the position of a senior prosecutor and that he had also worked as a defense attorney.

The interview was done by telephone and went well. However, he stated that he had and would defend everything except drug dealers. Was that an issue? Upon clarifying that he was referring to the big traffickers, I informed him, that like him I had done bails for some of them, but when it came to trials they preferred to use their regular counsel. He got the job and immediately proved to be a great hire.

Ransiri and I have remained friends and kept in touch even though I am in Yorkton, Saskatchewan and he is now practicing law in Vancouver, B.C. He hadn’t told me that he was writing a book of memoirs, so I was surprised and pleased to receive his manuscript. From the moment I picked it up I became so absorbed that I couldn’t put it down until I had read the last page.

Fellow lawyers will find this book an interesting read. However, I believe that a much wider audience will enjoy it. He uses all the facts and relevant background to tell the story and explains the legal issues in an easy to understand manner. All the stories are actual true accounts of Ransiri’s cases as prosecutor and defense attorney in his native Sri Lanka. Unless you are also from there your eyes will be opened to a very different world. I don’t envy his struggles in practicing in courts that unfortunately were too often corrupt. However, the upside is that adversity can make you stronger. In Ransiri’s case he became a very good criminal lawyer. In contrast, you will read about his sometimes client he calls GODFATHER. The nickname is well placed. The background that he survived made him the successful criminal he became. There is high drama in the account of his attempt to escape maximum security. Will you wish him captured or not?

There are tragic stories in the book, however, justice prevails in the trials that follow. Ransiri is the only person who could have written this. Finally, this book is worthy of your attention because in the end it makes a strong case for us to value and protect our noncorrupted judiciary.

Signed

Introduction

From my very young days I was associated with the legal system in Sri Lanka. One of my close relatives was a high court judge. That family had two daughters but no sons, and they treated me as their son. Of course, I was their godson and they were extremely fond of me. Some of my long school vacations were spent at my relatives’ residence. As a judge, my uncle would get transferred to various court points across the country. He used to take me to most of those courthouses, make me sit in the courtroom and make me watch trials. My uncle was a scholar in Latin and English. He had a perfect sense of justice. He never broke the law and always thought as a judge, and believed he should set an example of good conduct to the society. His honesty and integrity were never in question. His ability to research, read, and write was exceptionally high.

So in the beginning when I thought of a judge, the image that popped up in my mind was that of a very highly disciplined scholar who had a good sense of justice and integrity. This impression of my uncle as a judge was one of the factors that motivated me to apply to law school. In 1989 when I graduated from law school and was called to the bar, the legal profession in Sri Lanka was still considered to be a noble profession. But I could see that the writing was clearly on the wall.

Soon after being called to the bar, I joined the Attorney General’s department as a State Counsel. Over the years I saw and experienced how some of the senior officers of the department had to compromise the administration of justice for political pressure. At the same time, some of the good officers stood their ground and refused to give in to politicians. These good officers were often overlooked for promotions and judicial appointments.

In my view, the education system in Sri Lanka is responsible for producing inferior-quality law graduates. On top of that, when these graduates enter the legal profession, there are no checks and balances to instill professional standards or maintain continuing professional development. The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka has the control of discipline over the legal profession in that country. Obviously, the Supreme Court has no time for micromanaging discipline or administering continuing professional development of such a large number of lawyers. As the numbers in the legal profession grew, the discipline in the profession proportionately depreciated. The result is that there is now a significant number of lawyers in practice with little or no understanding of the role of a lawyer.

This did not happen overnight. It took a couple of decades for the legal profession to deteriorate to its present condition. Sadly, the senior lawyers who should have and could have addressed these issues in a timely manner, failed to put that stitch in time which could have saved the nine.

Against this backdrop, I had the good fortune to work under the mentorship of some really good officers of the Attorney General’s department. Among them Upawansa Yapa, Srinath Perera, Mahinda Wijesurendra and Priyasad Dep were outstanding. They were honest and had an uncompromising sense of justice. I also had the good fortune to prosecute before some very honest judges such as Nimal Dissanayake, Shirani Thilakawardane, Sarath Gunatilake and a few others. In this era of mixed blessings, I also started experiencing the corruption within the judiciary. Some judges were incompetent and ignorant. Some were inefficient. There was no proper mechanism in place to ensure the efficient dispensing of justice and to weed out the corrupt and inefficient judges. With mere passage of time, judges and prosecutors were promoted to higher levels whether they actually deserved to be promoted or not. Sadly, some of the judges were known to be financially corrupt. This was openly known to lawyers, including the senior lawyers who had the capacity to address these issues. But most lawyers preferred to sweep it under the carpet. These lawyers either directly benefited from the corrupt judges or they feared that other judges may gang up against them if they took a judge to task. Eventually, some judges, not all, started believing that they were above the law, and that they could do anything—including being disrespectful to lawyers and litigants and taking the law into their own hands.

One classic example was posted on Facebook recently by a Sri Lankan lawyer. In a divorce case, amongst the relief asked for by the lawyer for the female plaintiff, was an order permitting the plaintiff to use her maiden name (Kanya Namaya) after the dissolution of the marriage. In the first place, there is no need for such an order, and nothing prevents the plaintiff from using her maiden name even if she is still in her marriage. The lawyer, by an oversight, instead asked for an order for the plaintiff to use her virginity (Kanya Bhawaya). The FB post said that the judge yelled and threw the court record at the lawyer and refused to hear the case on the basis that the relief prayed for cannot be granted. The questions that came to my mind were: Wasn’t it obvious that it was a typo? If so, could the judge not have amended the pleading? Was justice served, or unnecessarily delayed by this judge’s action? Moreover, did the judge have any right to throw the court record in a manner humiliating the lawyer? If so, can the lawyer do the same, if a judge makes a mistake? Ironically, my friend on FB was very happy because his opposing counsel was humiliated by the judge. Little did he realize that Hitler will come for him the next time, and then there will be no Poles, Jews or French to defend him!

The purpose of highlighting the shortcomings in the Sri Lankan justice system in this book, including the discussions I will have about the corruption within the justice system, is for the purpose of inviting the attention of the lawyers and the public to these issues. As I said earlier, those who already know about these issues have preferred to remain silent. But the Sri Lankan justice system is failing; it is crumbling. It will collapse on the heads of the legal profession there. I earnestly hope that the leaders of the legal profession in Sri Lanka will realize that the profession is sitting on a time bomb that is ticking away. A system that has failed so much, cannot survive. Sadly, most Sri Lankan lawyers do not see their situation as bad. For the ones like myself who had the opportunity to experience working in Canada, where the justice system actually serves justice to the people, we see what is happening in Sri Lanka. There will come a day when the public will revolt against the corrupt and inefficient court system in Sri Lanka.

While all this was still developing, I was a young prosecutor fighting my way through. There are many stories that I have not related here. I will keep them for another day, if time permits. During my time as a prosecutor I enjoyed working on complex cases where there was no direct evidence to prove my case. This was a challenge that I enjoyed very much. The story I am going to tell you now, is one such case and it has altered the legal landscape of Sri Lanka.

Disappeared

Chapter 1 The Background

This case came up sometime in 1997 or early 1998. I was conducting special prosecutions for the Attorney General at that time and I had to take over the matter from the early stages of its investigation and then prosecute at the preliminary inquiry. For the education of my Canadian readers, you need to know that unlike in the Canadian criminal justice system, in Sri Lanka the State Counsel often get involved in overseeing and advising the police in complex criminal investigations.

For the purpose of this story I will call her SANOJA. She was a very pretty young girl from the beautiful mountainous area on the road from Matale to Dambulla in mid-country. If I remember right, she was born as the second child of a family of four siblings. She had a younger sister and one elder brother, both of whom I met in the course of my involvement in this case. Sanoja’s younger sister was one of my witnesses in the court case relating to the abduction and murder of Sanoja.

During the early years of her life Sanoja lived with her parents and siblings in their parental home. Her parental home was midway on the beautiful mountains of Millawana. Her elderly aunt, who was her mother’s sister and her aunt’s husband, who lived some distance away in the adjoining village, had no children. By the time Sanoja was 15 years old this aunt and uncle de facto adopted her into their home, and Sanoja started residing at her aunt’s home and attending high school in that village. However, despite relocation she maintained a very close relationship with her biological parents and her siblings.

The road from Sanoja ‘s new home to her parents’ house was very long. In fact, if one were to travel taking the main access road, the distance between the two houses would be around 15 miles. But there was this short cut, a footpath that ran across a few tea plantations between the two villages. On this footpath the distance between the two houses was less than four miles. So whenever Sanoja visited her parents, she travelled the footpath through the tea estates, and according to evidence the police found, at least once or twice a week Sanoja would go back and forth between her aunt’s house where she lived and her parental house. This footpath ran through several different tea plantations. One of these plantations belonged to the accused of this case.

For the better understanding of my readers, there was no public transport in these remote central villages. People often walked several miles on a daily basis to get about their daily chores. Since the mid ’90s motorcycles have become popular in some of these areas. But often even motorcycles could not take you along the rugged mountainous footpaths. Therefore, people would not hesitate to walk between two villages.

One evening this young woman was on her way to visit her parents and was spotted by the accused, who was in his estate land. The accused was a person well known to Sanoja. They were both from the same village. The accused anticipated that Sanoja would be returning late along the same footpath that evening, and he made his own plans for a surprise to unsuspecting Sanoja.

Two years from this date, on the night before Sanoja disappeared, she wrote down her life story in an old diary, from where I gathered a lot of useful information including what happened on this first day when the accused ambushed her and dragged her into the lonely estate bungalow and forcibly had sex with her. The diary was used by me as a dying deposition in the case and Sanoja’s sister, who was my witness, identified Sanoja’s handwriting. It was very clear that the diary had been written all in one go the night before she disappeared and in anticipation of her death. The diary clearly stated that she was joining the accused the following day to run away to a nearby city where they planned to get married if everything went well.

To give you more background information about